OBESITY prevention schemes and agricultural subsidies will be targets of sharp falls in funding when President Bush delivers his budget today.

He plans to cut or drop 150 spending programmes, including training for health workers and heating aid for the poor, in an attempt to address a record budget deficit, which Mr Bush says can be halved by 2009.

The President said over the weekend that the programmes to be slashed “were not getting the job done”. He said: “It’s time to be wise with the people’s money.”

However, despite widespread cuts, the Pentagon’s budget is to grow by 4.8 per cent to $419.3 billion (£223.5 billion). That figure does not include the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, about $5 billion a month.

While Democrats and lobbyists will use the cutbacks to attack Mr Bush, fiscal conservatives insist that his reforms do not go far enough.

The proposals, which must be approved by Congress, contain the growth in overall government spending at below the rate of inflation.

The government agency that controls and prevents disease will have its funding cut by 9 per cent, if Congress approves the budget document. One of his most controversial proposals is to slash the Health Department’s spending by 2.4 per cent to $68 billion, including a public service programme that prevents and controls obesity, which is at epidemic levels. Already it costs the nation more than smoking.

He aims to cut training for health professionals by 64 per cent, including a 33 per cent reduction for doctors at children’s hospitals, according to leaks to the American media.

Heating aid will drop by $2 billion, or 8.4 per cent, despite the recent increase in home fuel costs.

However, Mr Bush will also seek an extra $2 billion for community health centres, to achieve his goal of having a clinic in every poor county. He wants $718 million to push for more children to enrol in health insurance programmes and $38 million more on promoting sexual abstinence.

One of the more dramatic shifts is in farm and commodity programmes, where he wants to cut subsidies. Strategists believe that Mr Bush has won greater freedom in this area because he no longer depends on supporters in the rural South. However, his 2.9 per cent cut in the agriculture budget is far less than the $2 billion that the farm lobby had feared.

The cut may give Mr Bush a headache at home, but it is likely to please developing countries, which complain that they are disadvantaged by such protections in rich countries.

The budget also includes a $2 billion expansion in foreign aid, in keeping with the promise of Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, that “the time for diplomacy is now”.

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